Emotions and Coaching
In working with a client, it is important to keep in mind that shame is an even stronger emotion than either the thrill of success or disappointment of failure. It is even stronger than the emotion associated with regret. Shame will often dominate the somatic template and strongly influence the psychosocial template. Unlike Regret, which concerns behavior we did or didn’t take, or guilt, which is about our behavior and reactions to our behavior, shame is about who we are. It is about permanent disconnection from other people. Shame is formed early in life, when we feel unwanted or unloved by significant others.
It is also important when working with a client, to keep in mind that when we anticipate love expressed by other people, there is a renewed (or new) possibility that we can begin to love or at least forgive ourselves. We are told that what we did is “alright” or “understandable” given the circumstances. This appreciation articulated by another person enables us to reframe, re-interpret, and re-appraise our own actions. Our psychosocial template is not filled with acceptance, appreciation, and support. We can “go bravely into our new world” without a sense of personal shame and worthlessness. This appreciative psychosocial template might be even more appropriate than a template that leads us to retreat in a mid-21st-century world that is filled with VUCA-Plus challenges.
Essay III
A second set of insights and implications are derived from the third essay on coaching to anticipations. First, the distinction between energy and information is critical for us to keep in mind as professional coaches. Our life is a flow of energy and information. The polystatic process is itself a flow of these two fundamental entities. Our work as a coach is to help our client observe and potentially modify the flow of their own energy and information. Energy comes primarily from the amygdala, and more generally, the Emotional Element of the polystatic process. Energy also comes secondarily from the Cognitive Element. We get excited about an anticipated event, whether positive or negative. We are motivated by the positive (and negative) environment we are about to confront.
Cognition and Coaching
The relationship we anticipate in the coming moments encourages us to become more closely involved with this person or to abandon this relationship as soon as possible. Similarly, Information comes primarily from the Cognitive Element of the polystatic process, and more generally from the environment in which we are about to operate. Information also comes secondarily from the Emotional Element. It is particularly important to recall as professional coaches that we must infer our Emotional information.
Our feelings do not present themselves to us in a straightforward manner as do people or events “out there” in our environment. As professional coaches, we can assist our clients in deriving information from their Emotional state. We are in the business of helping our clients identify and label emotions when they naturally emerge during a coaching session, rather than eliciting these emotions through intense probing of our client’s past history of abuse or neglect or current history of trauma.
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